Built for Storms

How discomfort became my teacher—
and why I keep saying yes to weather, work, and what-ifs

You don’t build grit in comfort. You build it under heat, hunger, and hail.

I didn’t first learn grit in the mountains. It started on the streets of Chennai, back when I was a college student with more stubbornness than strategy.

I designed my own survival drills and called them “Marketing Experiments.” The rules were clean and cruel:
pick an unknown street, arrive with no plan or money,
and earn enough that day to buy a meal and a train ticket back to campus.
No laptop. No design tools. No programming.

If all my usual strengths disappeared, could I still figure it out?

I ran 11 of those experiments. 4 crashed. 7 worked.
My best day was ₹4,500 in 45 minutes—earned with conversation, intuition, and a willingness to be told no twenty times before someone said yes.

I’d step off the train at night smelling of dust and diesel, exhausted but wired. That quiet confidence didn’t come from a classroom. It came from learning

I could walk into the unknown with nothing but myself and still come home fed.

Years later, I tried the “sensible” life once. I took a well-paying job with a respectable title. I made it through probation and learned fast how bureaucracy can drain a soul. Decisions crawled. Creativity wilted. I could feel parts of myself go quiet at a desk that should have felt like security.

So I quit.

I threw myself into early-stage startup work and doubled my hours for a third of the pay, while planning a wedding on the side. Late nights blurred into early mornings under a flickering tube light. It was chaotic and tiring—and worth it. That season set a lifelong rule:

I won’t trade curiosity for comfort or stay anywhere that doesn’t teach me.

Then came the mountains.

The tent was flimsy and the storm was not. At 11,000 feet the air felt rationed. My head pounded from altitude; my stomach rolled with each gust. I counted the steps it would take to move:
One to the zipper, two to my boots, three to the bottle that had frozen solid inside the bag.
Then I unzipped.

That moment didn’t make me brave. It made me honest.
You can’t hide behind ambition when weather wants to fold you in half. You either move, or you don’t.

Eight treks later—snow, hail, -20°C nights, strangers who became trail family, nights with no sleep and a gut that refused to cooperate—I can see the through line.

The streets taught me to begin.
The job taught me what I will never accept.
The mountains taught me to keep moving.

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Clarity Over Discipline

When the target is sharp, willpower is redundant.

People assume I’m disciplined. I can be. I can also reorganize spice jars to dodge a deadline and scrub a kitchen to avoid starting a draft.

What flips the switch isn’t willpower; it’s clarity.
When a target is crisp, the noise drops away. The phone becomes a brick. Decision-making turns binary: forward or not.

Clarity carried me into those Chennai streets, out of that office, and onto buses filled with strangers headed toward cold ridgelines. When I know what matters, I move.

Line I live by: Clarity kills chaos. Discipline is just clarity in motion.

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The Body I Once Took for Granted

Train for the life you want, not the mirror you’re in.

Mountains test one thing: will you keep going when everything protests?

Across 8 himalayan treks in 19.5 months, my body dealt with bad sleep, a rebellious gut, sun cutting through thin air, and trails where hands had to help feet. I’ve gasped for breath at 14,000 feet, knelt on snow to wrestle laces turned to wire, and woken to find water frozen solid inside my sleeping bag.

Somewhere between trek two and trek seven, a shift happened. I stopped treating my body like a project to control and started treating it like a partner. It had every right to resent me. Instead, it kept showing up.

Now I train with a longer horizon. I want a body that says yes to summits when I’m sixty.
Resilience over aesthetics.
Capacity over optics.
Longevity over numbers.

Strong is a look; resilient is a lifespan.

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Food Stopped Being a Fight

Respect tastes better than restriction.

There was a time when food felt like chaos wearing celebration’s clothes.
A kilo of kaju katli could pass for dinner.
A jar of chocolate and a spoon counted as comfort.
Meals slipped into guilt; guilt hardened into shame.

That’s over. Food is respect now. Plates are colorful and protein-rich. 95% of my meals rebuild me; the rest are joy without apology. After a real meal, the cravings that used to boss me around barely whisper. Dessert shows up sometimes, not as a negotiation but as a choice.

Eat for tomorrow’s legs, not tonight’s likes.

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Curiosity Starts. Courage Finishes.

Wonder opens the door; will walks through it.

My biggest turns didn’t start with confidence. They started with curiosity:
What if I try this street?
What if I leave this job?
What if I sign up for a trek alone and meet whoever shows up at the trailhead?

Curiosity pulls me to the edge.
Courage is the quiet nudge over it—the shaky hand that moves while fear lists its reasons.
That pairing has been my best compass.

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Failure: The Field Guide I Actually Use

The prettiest stories teach the least.

If I stacked my real education on a table, it wouldn’t be framed certificates. It would be rejection emails, underpriced invoices, blistered heels, and tent walls that caught my tears when the storm outlasted my optimism.

Success looks tidy; failure sticks. It shows where to pace, how to prepare, when to rest, and what to charge. I go back to those notes often.

Success decorates. Failure educates.

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Gratitude as Grip

Kindness to the moment is an edge, not a weakness.

Gratitude isn’t soft. It’s grip.

It’s sunlight warming a freezing switchback.
It’s dry socks buried deep in a pack.
It’s chai at my mother’s table after a day that almost buckled me.

Gratitude doesn’t make the grade easier. It keeps my feet under me long enough to take the next step.

Gratitude keeps you dangerous—steady enough to continue.

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Time Is the Rudest Teacher

Later is where good intentions go to vanish.

There are only so many summits left. So many fruit market mornings. So many evenings when my body will happily agree to “one more push.”
Time doesn’t pause for excuses. Later is where ambition goes to fade.

Urgency isn’t panic. It’s respect.

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Focus as Armor

Guard your attention like it guards your future.

When it matters—a race, a pitch, a decision with a long shadow—I shrink my world. Headphones in. Boundaries up. No casual conversations with my attention. That isn’t arrogance. That’s respect for the version of me I’ve been building.

Focus isn’t a mood. It’s a ritual I practice until it behaves like armor.

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Risk Has Always Been Cheaper Than Boredom

The safe route charges interest you can’t afford.

Predictable promotions and neat ladders never fit.
I’ve chosen messy projects that sharpen me,
roles that didn’t exist yet,
treks I wasn’t fully ready for,
and groups of strangers who became friends somewhere between a hail squall and a shared snack.

I didn’t wait for roadmaps because the only way to learn what I could carry was to pick it up.

Risk costs less than regret. Every time.

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The Proof I Carry

If you need evidence, check the weather on my face.

Grit isn’t genetic. It’s earned. I can point to the receipts:
hail on my face, -20°C mornings, a stomach that quit before I did,
experiments that failed, a desk I walked away from, invoices sent at 3 a.m.,
and the quiet pride that arrives only after you keep going when quitting would be easier.

I’m not building an easy life. I’m building one that pushes back and trains me in return.
The next storm will come. It always does. When it does, I won’t need to prove a thing.

The proof is already written across me.